Please add any questions here.

Rhythmbox FAQ

How do I set the music dir in an external device?

Create a .is_audio_player file on the device. You can set a few fields in this file to override the HAL device information like this:

audio_folders=MUSIC/,RECORDINGS/
folder_depth=2
output_formats=application/ogg,audio/x-ms-wma,audio/mpeg

but if the HAL information for your device is wrong, you should file a bug, either with your distribution or in http://bugs.freedesktop.org/, to get it fixed.

How do I check out a copy of Rhythmbox from the Subversion (SVN) repository?

user@server:~/svn$ svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/rhythmbox/trunk rhythmbox

How do I build Rhythmbox from Subversion (SVN)?

user@server:~/svn/rhythmbox$ ./autogen.sh
user@server:~/svn/rhythmbox$ make
root@server:~/svn/rhythmbox$ make install

This installs rhythmbox into into /usr/local/. In general, it's better to install it under your home directory:

user@server:~/svn/rhythmbox$ ./autogen.sh --prefix=$HOME/gnome-svn/rhythmbox --disable-scrollkeeper
user@server:~/svn/rhythmbox$ make
user@server:~/svn/rhythmbox$ make install

It complains about totem-pl-parser. Help!

Rhythmbox now depends on totem-pl-parser 2.21.4 or newer, which isn't available in many distributions yet. To build it from SVN (gnome-2-22 branch):

user@server:~/svn$ svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/totem-pl-parser/branches/gnome-2-22 totem-pl-parser
user@server:~/svn$ cd totem-pl-parser
user@server:~/svn/totem-pl-parser$ ./autogen --prefix=$HOME/gnome-svn/rhythmbox
user@server:~/svn/totem-pl-parser$ make
user@server:~/svn/totem-pl-parser$ make install
user@server:~/svn/totem-pl-parser$ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/gnome-svn/rhythmbox/lib/pkgconfig

and then proceed as above.

How do I add DAAP/iTunes Sharing Support?

Before you do a make (if you checked out SVN) do: (Requires libsoup & either Howl or Avahi). In rhythmbox 0.9.6 and later, DAAP support is automatically enabled if Howl or Avahi is found and is no longer considered experimental.

Where are lyrics and artwork stored?

Lyrics are stored in ~/.lyrics and artwork in ~/.gnome2/rhythmbox/covers

From where is artwork fetched?

Rhythmbox uses Amazon to look up artwork. Depending on your locale, a different mirror is used. Currently supported are en_US, en_GB, de and jp.

If you have local image files, saved in the same directory as the album with the filename "cover, album, albumart, .folder or folder Rhythmbox will use them instead of looking up a cover on Amazon.

Covers embedded in songs are currently not supported.

Why can't I change the track information (i.e. why doesn't "retagging" work)?

See Rhythmbox/TagWriting.

After importing my MP3 files, why do my tags look all wrong?

This usually happens, when your files are using a wrong charset. A lot of applications (especially older ones) created those broken ID3v1 tags. Unfortunately it is not possible to automatically detect this. But with a bit of work it can be fixed by retagging those files. You'll need Easytag for this. This works in Easytag 1.99:

from the menu, open Settings => Preferences
navigate to the ID3 Tag Settings page
make sure the "Write ID3V2 Tag" option is enabled
set the "Character set for ID3 tags" to "Always save tags to UNICODE character set"
below in the experts frame set "Use nonstandard character set when reading ID3 tags" to the charset the files are tagged in.
save the preferences
select all files that have wrong tags in the Easytag browser.
from the menu, select File => Force Saving files.

Now the files should be fixed. When restarting Rhythmbox, it should rescan those files correctly. If it doesn't do this, delete them from the library and import them again.

Can I use MIDI files with Rhythmbox?

Rhythmbox uses the GStreamer media framework for actual playback and a lot of other functionality, so in general Rhythmbox plays exactly those formats that are supported by GStreamer. GStreamer, on the other hand, uses a plugin system where each format is supported by a plugin. Thus, the formats supported by GStreamer (and Rhythmbox) depends on which plugins you have installed. Different distributions may ship with a different set of plugins by default.

To look for plug-ins, go to http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/ . The Wildmidi plugin works fine with rhythmbox.

Older FAQ

An out-of-date Rhythmbox FAQ is at http://www.rhythmbox.org/faq.html. (These questions and answers, if still relevant should be ported here).

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